A Fine Romance

O0O0O0O

The very morning after the welcome banquet, a guard of twenty slaves called at the house with a lavish litter borne amongst them. Riding on the litter was a host of delicacies and treasures: caskets of spiced wine, platters of sugared nuts, yards of colourful silks and spools of brilliant, vibrantly-coloured embroidery thread. There were small chests of semi-precious stones and flasks of heady perfume, and all were presented to Susan of Narnia with the most elaborate piping of trumpets the dazzled queen had ever heard.

"Oh . . ." she said faintly, when at last they had finished, and declared that all she saw before her was a gift from Rabadash, Prince of Calormen, as a token of the great esteem he held her in, "oh, my goodness . . ."

"Never in all my born days," breathed Mr Tumnus, emerging from the inner courtyard to join her, "have I seen such a display of goods."

"Surely," Susan agreed as Edmund also stepped out to see what all the fuss was about, "this must be some of the finest bounty the Empire has to offer. Though I know him to be a man of great property, I still cannot help but wonder at the prince's generosity."

And even Edmund had to agree that it was quite something.

"Look!" Corin, not nearly so awestruck as his elders, had already swung directly up onto the litter and plopped down amongst the splendid gifts. "Look here, this is amazing! Here," he hoisted something with genuine admiration, "look, it's a bolt of silk as red as blood! And here," he reached to inspect something else, "it's a flask of- ugh, what a horrid, flowery scent. But here, now," he turned to lift a wicker lid, "here's a whole basket of amethyst. I say, they really are something, aren't they? Doesn't Queen Lucy like amethyst?"

She did, but Susan found she hadn't the words needed to tell him so. Instead she continued to simply stare at the litter until at last the silence became almost painful, and Edmund had to step up and speak for her.

"Her Majesty is most delighted and honoured to accept," he said curtly, and turned to have some people move forward to bring in the gifts, only to have one slave prostrate himself at the king's feet as ask, ever so humbly, what the king desired of them.

It was an awkward moment indeed for Edmund, who shuffled his feet and tried not to sound too pained as he ventured "Well, you'll return to your –er– master, will you not?"

"But Majesty," the slave trembled in his uncertainty, "we have been given to Queen Susan."

A soft gasp of shock went up through all assembled there, and Susan swayed a little, as if the news were nearly enough to make her faint. Indeed, everybody looked a little stunned at this revelation.

"Well," Edmund said weakly, "well, if that doesn't beat all . . ."

"By Aslan's mane," a gruff little voice spoke up, as one of the Narnian Dwarfs appeared in the doorway, "did I hear him aright? This prince gives men to his would-be bride?"

"Hold your tongue," Edmund cautioned sternly, all too aware that they were standing very close to the street, where Calormenes of all ages and ranks were passing by. "It is not for us to pass judgment on our host. It is, however, for the Queen's Grace to issue her decision as to what is to be done with this part of her . . . gift."

"We shall accept and free them of course," Susan looked appalled that Edmund even had to ask. "They shall be freed immediately, and it is for them to choose what they will do with themselves afterward. It is not for the Queen of Narnia to hold slaves."

"No indeed," Edmund said very quietly, "and of course they shall be freed if this is your Majesty's decree. However, do not delude yourself, Sister, into thinking that the Queen of Calormen would hold such freedom of choice with her own slaves once she lived in the prince's house."

Then he issued a curt order to the former slave bowing before him that the gifts were to be brought inside, and turned on his heel to walk in himself.

"Majesty," the Dwarf puffed, running inside after the king, "Majesty, I'll tell you plainly, I don't like this business of letting these Calormenes into our home, slaves or no. Too clearly they could be spies, sent on us by the prince himself, and may carry any number of tales back to the palace at will."

"Your reticence is duly noted," Edmund murmured, "but I entreat you remember always, it is for me to decide who shall gain entrance to these walls and who shall not. Now I beg leave of you; I have much to think on." And without further conversation he took himself away to his own rooms, leaving the Dwarf watching after him.

For her part in things, Susan at last managed to muster enough presence of mind to direct the litter beyond the inner gates, into a room they had not yet found a use for. Mr Tumnus trotted along behind, his hooves making a pleasant clip-clop sound on the stone floors as he tried to engage one of the slaves in polite conversation.

"Sweaty work this must be for you, friend," he observed, but the slave only murmured it was his duty to be of service and an honour to fulfill his duty, so Mr Tumnus found he couldn't get much further there.

Corin, entirely unconcerned with trying to strike up a conversation, continued to busy himself with taking inventory of all Queen Susan's lovely gifts as the litter on which he sat was borne into the designated chamber.

"Look here, there's simply yards of this green stuff here, and two bolts of brilliantine. Just a lot of sparkly things in this basket, but look here!" and he held aloft a fierce, bright little dagger with real appreciation. "Look at it, isn't it just the finest thing you've ever seen?"

"It certainly is lovely," Susan murmured, still somewhat overwhelmed by the arrival of it all. "If you like, Corin, you may take it as a gift; I've little use for such a thing, after all."

So Corin was delighted and effusive in his thanks as he belted the little tool to his hip and scrambled back down off the litter, munching on a handful of sugared almonds.

"Really nice things," he offered grudgingly, "if you like all that silk stuff." Then he scampered off to see what the house had to offer in the way of a proper breakfast, leaving Susan with the unenviable task of explaining to all the slaves that they were now in fact free, and had to find out what they wanted to do with themselves next.

O0O0O0O

It took Susan far longer than she had expected to deal with twenty newly-pronounced freemen. Having lived one's entire life in bondage, it is after all rather a shock to find oneself without the protection and provision of a Master, so Susan was rather a long time in assuring them that of course they might still find work in Narnian employ if they so chose, but they were also now at liberty to leave entirely, if they chose.

In then end, only a very few did. The others opined they would either stay with the Narnians for at least the duration of their stay in Tashbaan, or go back with them when the time came. Many were clearly averse to the idea of returning to a demon land inhabited by all sorts of fiends in Beast-shape, but then one slave said suddenly he would ally himself with the queen, and go where she did, and another was quick to agree, so in this manner Susan first realised that her purpose in coming to Calormen was by no means a secret one in Tashbaan. These former slaves expected she would soon enough return to the palace, and were willing to be there when she did.

That matter settled, she urged them all to locate quarters to the rear of the house where the servants' chambers were located, and then made her escape to her own room to pen a graceful little note of acceptance and thanks to Rabadash, such as all Ladies of manners, but most especially queens, will do when they have received a gift.

After the note had been duly dispatched by messenger, it was met very shortly by one from the palace, entreating the queen in many graceful phrases to come riding with the prince and his court should she feel equal to the task during the mid-afternoon heat. Susan, almost embarrassed to realise what a flurry this put her in, at once flew to Edmund's door and barely offered him the courtesy of a knock before throwing the door wide and entreating his permission for the outing.

"It's not for me to oppose you," was all Edmund said, but his face said he would have liked to do that and more. Susan, seeing it, crossed at once to kneel prettily at his feet and give his hand a fond pat.

"Brother," she smiled, "you put my own wishes ahead of your own prejudice; mistake me not, I mark this, and love you all the more for it. Can you not at least see my joy? That this is where I am pleased to be, and it is to him I will be pleased to belong? He is not what we know, 'tis true, but he acquitted himself most gallantly in our home, and I have no doubt he will continue to do so whilst we are resident in his."

Edmund, seeing that her own joy really had eclipsed any true concern for his own reticence, had to smile in spite of himself as he covered her hand in his.

"I hope you are right," was all he could bring himself to say, "for it would pain me more than you know to see you find him otherwise."

Satisfied, Susan stood and flew from the room to arrange for some men from the Northern party to accompany her on her ride. This left Edmund to sink back in his seat, letting his head drop back against the cool stone wall as he shut his eyes and offered up a fervent prayer.

"Aslan. By your intervention, if it pleases you . . . I beg you. I cannot break my word to my brother, so I only ask you will not suffer me to see this man break my sister's heart. You know my love for her; you know what she is to all of us, and we know what she is to you. Protect her; guard her heart, and preserve, if you will, the joy she has known this past week. I beg you now; as you love her, let her never know him for aught what he has been whilst courting her. Or, if she must, let it at least be before it is too late for her to escape."

O0O0O0O

In the end it was the Lords Peridan and Drinian who accompanied Susan on her ride, as well as a highly intrigued Prince Corin, who would not have been left out of the sport for anything.

"What manner of horses do you fancy he will give us?" Corin wanted to know. He was trotting along beside the litter that had been sent from the palace for Susan's use. Others had been sent for the men and Corin, but Corin, having loftily declined the use of such a contraption for himself, had appointed himself personal outrider to Her Majesty (albeit on foot, rather than on horseback) and Susan was finding him a marvellous travelling companion as they passed through the streets under the openly curious gaze of the townspeople.

"Way!" bawled the crier before them. "Way for Her Majesty, Susan of Narnia! Way for the Barbarian Queen!"

The first time he had called Susan a Barbarian Queen, Corin had flown into a fine passion and started to call the crier out, but Susan had quickly hushed him and explained nothing was meant by it; it was simply a term that Calormenes used without thinking of how it might be taken by themselves. Corin had at last agreed not to box the man where he stood, but would not accept that this was a proper term for his Lady Queen.

"A lot of nerve, he has, talking about you like that," he huffed, and he grew even angrier when he saw how the crowds that lined the streets gawked at them as they passed.

"They have no right," he insisted, "treating you as if you're some sort of thing to be stared at! It's not as if you're in a menagerie for their pleasure; you're a Queen of Narnia! You're second only to King Peter, who is second only to Aslan, who is the son of the Emperor-over-Seas and second to none! They've no right!" And he would have immediately begged Susan to draw the curtains about her to shut out all the onlookers, had she not diverted him by speaking of the event they were making their way toward.

"Truly," she said brightly, "I welcome the chance to seat a horse again, and perhaps see more of this strange land. Will you not also, Highness?" so of course Corin had to answer her. Then she put another question to him, and another, and in this manner gently diverted him from his angry study of the watchful Calormenes. When he began to speculate on the horses themselves, Susan knew she had calmed him down and was able to recline on the cushions as she offered a highly favourable description of her own new horse, to which Corin listened with rapt attention.

"She sounds like the sort of creature you best deserve," he decided loyally, once Susan had exhausted herself with the listing of all Alambil's virtues. "I am sure you look well on her, too. Are the others so lovely?"

"Lucy's is," Susan smiled, gazing at the silken canopy above her head as if it bore on its underside the very image of her sister and Aravir. "Truly, she is a horse of sunlight; it makes me laugh even now, to think of how they shine at one another."

This description, Corin decided, was one truly fitting his beloved Queen Lucy, and he allowed himself a real, boyish, dimpled grin as he thought of how such a pair must look; maid and horse, glowing at one another like the morning sun and Eastern star.

"She is such light," he observed, and so wrapped up in his contemplation of Lucy was he that he missed the knowing glance Susan stole at him from her place of repose.

"She is indeed," she murmured, and felt a sudden, odd pang deep within her heart, almost as if the mention of Lucy had forced her to share in some measure of the pain that the younger queen had expressed at her sister's departure. "She did not want me to come," she heard herself confess, and Corin looked over at her with innocent bewilderment.

"Whyever not? It's an odd country, and the people do scowl so, but for all that they eat a lot of greasy snakes and gawp at visiting Ladies as if they were three-trunked elephants, they haven't done anything too terrible, have they? Why shouldn't she want you to visit?"

Susan, who could hardly say then and there that she planned to wed the prince the moment he made his intentions clear, simply said that Lucy had not liked the prince overmuch, and that they had disagreed on this point shortly before her departure.

"So it pains me, somehow, to think of her, and the way we parted, "she concluded, and Corin nodded solemnly, and confessed that his father might have sent him away for reasons of exasperation as well.

"Truly?" Susan said dryly, and earned a deep blush from the prince, but before he could respond, the crier began bellowing at the guards to open the palace gates. Corin's shoulders squared at once, and Susan sat up a little straighter in the litter, wishing it were possible to ride on one of the foolish contraptions without looking like the laziest creature on the planet.

"I charge thee now, give us thy solemn word, playmate," she breathed, a quick hand flying out to tap Corin's cheek, "wilt not give any cause for offence from this man. On your love for me, I charge thee."

So Corin, much as he hated to, gave his word he would not do anything he absolutely couldn't help, and Susan knew better than to ask for any more than that. The boy was only human, after all.

O0O0O0O

Meantime, a desert and a wood away, Queen Lucy of Narnia was hiding. She had taken her morning-star horse and fled, burying herself as deep in the wood around the castle as she was able. Aravir, perfectly happy to take her little rider wherever she might wish to go, had lit out at a steady, floating trot that Lucy knew, even without having to ask anyone, could be kept up for hours if necessary. It was a new, yet familiar sensation; as if this partnership was what she had been waiting for without even knowing it, and now that it was here, it had come at just the right time.

"Take me away from here," she murmured to her horse, and the dainty mare, though she did not understand, politely flicked her ears back to hear the lilting voice before swivelling them forward once more and focusing on the trail that lay ahead.

"Take me away," Lucy repeated, desperately fighting tears, "and maybe I can pretend that everything is where it ought to be."

Aravir neither quickened nor slackened her pace. Straight-legged and sure-footed, she continued coursing over the narrow track that Lucy had chosen, bearing her rider as far away from the Cair as the path would permit. When at last Lucy drew a halt, there wasn't anyone else in sight but the two of them. With a little gasp she slid down from Aravir's back and promptly flung her arms around the neck of the little horse, who took it all in stride. Even as the young queen began to sob and entreat Aslan to bring her sister back, Aravir kept all four feet on the ground and let her mistress cry.

"I want her happy, I really do," Lucy sniffled defensively, "but I want her home even more. He's not what she wants to think he is; he can't be. I don't trust him at all, but I'm so frightened she'll be taken in. I'm frightened she already has been. I think sometimes that she feels she doesn't fit . . . that she wants something more her own. And I'm just so scared that she just wants to be rid of us so badly, she might . . ."

She shuddered, and Arvir nibbled fondly on the queen's sleeve until Lucy was able to get hold of herself and straighten up. As Aravir watched, she found a handkerchief in her sleeve and tried to do tidy things to her face. Then she tucked it away and tried to put on a brave face for her horse, who looked merely interested in all the goings-on.

"I feel rather a child," she mumbled, and got a swift butt in the stomach from her horse's head that nearly knocked the wind out of her.

"Oof! All right, then," she laughed, moving around to swing up neatly onto Aravir's back once more, "all right, I shan't share my self-doubts with you any longer. Come on then, pretty one; let's away to the Sea and have some real fun, before we're missed."

And Aravir tossed her head and straightaway picked up that lovely trot once more, only too happy to obey.

O0O0O0O

A.N.: Lots of author's notes here this time! Bear with me.

First of all, I'm so sorry things have dragged so slowly to this point. I kept putting off posting this because I wanted to have the next chapter written first, but the next chapter just won't get written, and now classes have begun again so I'm really not sure when it will happen! Therefore, in the interest of keeping things moving along at all, I posted this.

Secondly, I wanted to take a moment to respond to a persistent question concerning the ages of the Pevensies in the story. I wasn't aware until very recently that there were apocryphal writings in which Lewis had indicated a very precise timeline for Narnia, elsewise I would definitely have adhered to that. As things stand, though (and yes I know I may have indicated slightly different ages to different people at varying times!) the closest I can come to nailing down how I see them is Lucy as 16, Edmund as 19, Susan as 22 and Peter as 24, give or take a year for everybody. And of course if you've read them as older or younger or even a mix of both then I certainly have no quarrel with that, since I haven't bothered to think on it too much myself; they were just sort of there.

Finally, to the many people who have contacted me to ask about the Calormene horses, I thought I ought to clear things up here and now by saying that I see and write them as Arabians. I have a long-standing love affair with Arabian horses, and could think of no better treasure to offer anyone from any land.

(Oh, and an especially huge thank you to Katie, who sent me the radio-drama version of HHB. It has entertained me to no end these past few days, and finally gave me the kick I needed to get this posted)

Up next: The Scales Must Fall, in which a prayer is answered and a queen is forced to face facts.